Rules For Story Writing

This is just a quickie, 'cause I'm mid study times and realised I hadn't posted since Monday.

I looked up the 7 types of story a while ago, after being told there are these set types of story and if a story doesn't fall into one of these 7 types it's going to fail. It becomes one of those stories that you feel didn't really tell you anything, when you get to the end.

I found 3 versions (take from that what you will)

NUMBER 1

‪1) ACHILLES - The almost flawless person, e.g. Superman.‬

‪2) CINDERELLA - The dream come true (e.g Dirty Dancing, Prerry Woman.)‬

‪3) CIRCE - The chase, e.g The Blues Brothers.‬

‪4) FAUST - Selling your soul to the Devil may bring riches, but eventually, you will belong to him, e.g. Wall Street‬

‪5) ORPHEUS - The loss of something personal, e.g. Regarding Henry, Farscape (think about John Crichton!)‬

‪6) ROMEO & JULIET - The love story, e.g. Sleepless In Seattle.‬

‪7) TRISTAN - X loves Y, but one or both are already spoken for, e.g. Fatal Attraction.‬

NUMBER 2

1. Overcoming the monster -- defeating some force which threatens...

e.g. most Hollywood movies; Star Wars, James Bond.

2. The Quest -- typically a group setoff in search of something and

(usually) find it. e.g. Watership Down, Pilgrim's Progress.

3. Journey and Return -- the hero journeys away from home to somewhere

different and finally comes back having experienced something and

maybe changed for the better. e.g. Wizard of Oz, Gullivers Travels.

4. Comedy - not neccesarily a funny plot. Some kind of

misunderstanding or ignorance is created that keeps parties apart

which is resolved towards the end bringing them back together. e.g.

Bridget Jones Diary, War and Peace.

5. Tragedy - Someone is tempted in some way, vanity, greed etc and

becomes increasingly desperate or trapped by their actions until at a

climax they usually die. Unless it's a Hollywood movie, when they

escape to a happy ending. e.g. Devils' Advocate, Hamlet.

6. Rebirth - hero is captured or oppressed and seems to be in a state

of living death until it seems all is lost when miraculously they are

freed. e.g. Snow White.

7. Rags to Riches - self explanatory really. e.g. Cinderella &

derivatives (all 27,000 of them)!!!

NUMBER 3

1. A hero – the person through whose eyes we see the story unfold, set

against a larger background.

2. The hero’s character flaw – a weakness or defense mechanism that

hinders the hero in such a way as to render him/her incomplete.

3. Enabling circumstances – the surroundings the hero is in at the

beginning of the story, which allow the hero to maintain his/her

character flaw.

4. An opponent – someone who opposes the hero in getting or doing what

he/she wants. Not always a villain. For example, in a romantic comedy,

the opponent could be the man or woman whom the hero seeks romance

with. The opponent is the person who instigates the life-changing

event.

5. The hero’s ally – the person who spends the most time with the hero

and who helps the hero overcome his/her character flaw.

6. The life-changing event – a challenge, threat or opportunity

usually instigated by the opponent, which forces the hero to respond

in some way that’s related to the hero’s flaw.

7. Jeopardy – the high stakes that the hero must risk to overcome

his/her flaw. These are the dramatic events that lend excitement and

challenge to the quest.

I just thought I'd share these tips with you, 'cause I know that some of my readers are writers themselves. I looked these up, because I started working on my own novel and figured it wouldn't hurt to do some research. I'd like to know your thoughts on these tips and if you've used them in your writing before.

The actual lists were just copied and pasted from somewhere. Unfortunately they were just pasted into my notepad and were never cited 'cause it was just for personal reference. But if you want to know who really owns those words, I'm sure it wont be too hard to find out. Massive props to them. 

Before The World Was Flat...

This is going to be a really short one I'm afraid as I'm currently working and paused to share this with you all. I'm sat transcribing my tutorial (I recorded us talking about stuff - it was a damn good plan) so I can have all the notes written down to refer to and it got to a part where were were talking about the Greeks and geometry and how they used it to work out the world was a sphere. Turns out that story about Christopher Columbus discovering the world was round rather than flat was a lie! I feel cheated. Part of me kind of wonders what the point of school (as in high school) even was you know, they didn't teach us anything and when they did teach us things it was a lie and they totally had us believing Britain were the saviours of the planet or something big and British - with all the look at us and our spirit. Ok that's just in history classes that last bit I guess, but still. In fact, I feel a rant about secondary schools in Britain may be in order. Just not today. This is me making a note of it.

They saw the shadow of the Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse was round. And they used the stars rising and falling to work it out too.

Plato used geometry (which he had mass love for) to tell us the sun, moon and planets would all have a natural circular motion.
Ok so we know the sun doesn't orbit anything now, but still - be impressed!

They even worked out how big the Earth had to be.
And when eclipses and other cosmology related events would happen.

I started researching this so I could share with you how awesome the Ancient Greeks were, but I should instead be writing my essay. I am like a super procrastinator, yet it's all somehow disguised to look like it's still work.... well I'm reading about Plato, so it still counts... only, that's not really true now is it? Sorry this entry isn't really up there with the awesomeness that is [SuperPennie] but I just needed to share my findings with someone and there's no one to talk to at 5.40am about this and I was far too excited to just keep it to myself.

You know, it kind of upset me that I wasn't an Ancient Greek. But I guess, being a girl I wouldn't have been able to go to any of those schools of thought and studied with all the lads anyway. Pretty sure only rich men or little boys the rich men could look after got to go to school. But I don't actually know how true that statement is.

When The Fun Goes South

I realise that actually sounds a little sexual. That’s not what I was going for, but heck I’ll leave it that way –

I was thinking about how much I enjoy reading. How much time I spend reading. Whether it’s a blog, website, newspaper, novel, philosophy, script or poetry I enjoy every moment of it – until I have to do it. Until I have to do it and be tested on how well I understood it. Those moments I not only have to do it and be tested on it but I have to throw in my own input. Suddenly thinking and reading becomes the last things I want to do in the world. Suddenly I’d rather do nothing.

How does that make any sense? How can something I love so much one minute suddenly become a nightmare I’m trying to avoid? So I spend more time than I can afford telling myself I can’t do it or I don’t want to do it or not even thinking about it at all – until every so often I just suck it up and sit down to do it. Once I start it’s fine, it’s just getting myself to start that I have a lot of trouble with.

I think it’s ‘cause I’m scared of failing; of not being good enough. So I don’t want to try. 

I don't want to think like this and I’m trying to push those thoughts away but it’s a bottom of my stomach kind of avoidance. The same sort of feeling I get if I have to tell someone something they don’t want to hear or ask to do something they might not want me doing.

Fear isn’t going to get me anywhere. Apart from left behind while the world speeds on by. It occurred to me that I’m actually scared of lots of little things. I’m not the sort of person that sees a mouse and screams or watches a horror movie and has nightmares, but I am the sort that see’s a microphone stand that’s too high and panics at the thought of having to be the person to fix it. The person that freaks out because she thinks she’s going to fail, but somehow can’t stop the freaking out and just get my head down to stop the failing. I’m getting better. I’m learning to organise my time better. But it's not like it's even enough.

It’s never been this hard before. School was a doddle, never had to work that hard; never had that much to do. For anyone that’s ever been part of the National Curriculum you know that they don’t want us thinking for ourselves or thinking outside of any boxes – school was just about memorising random crap to purge onto a page in an exam. Suddenly I’m learning, I’m thinking and I’m scared. Everyone around me (pretty much) went to private schools and read really fast and have been doing philosophy since they were little so they seem so much better at this than me (ok partial exaggeration going on but let it go). I chose philosophy on a whim. I was going to take law and realised it would be a nightmare and there was no way I could be a lawyer. I’m not emotionally strong enough to send people to prison, or to help murderers walk free.

I did some work experience with the CPS when I was 15 and went to a bunch of trials in the crown court and there was at least one occasion I started to cry. There was this black guy who was being done for assault and the police officers were giving their evidence. 10 white guys who were all reading notes from their little black note pads which they all sat down in the cafeteria and wrote together. Of course their stories are going to fit together, they can draft out what they’re going to say and compare notes. Of course this one man’s word isn’t going to be able to stand up to the word of 10 policemen. And I felt sorry for him, I could see in his eyes that they were screwing him over (maybe I’m just naïve).

But living off Old Kent Road in S.London for a year I saw the police take advantage of a fair few black boys from the council flats across the road, so I have little faith in their policing ability and think British Police are more like bullies.

Again I’ve gone off on a tangent. Now to suck it up and get this bloody essay out of the way.